Established in 1965, the Department of English provides specialized knowledge and training in British Literature, American Literature, New Literatures in English, Comparative Literature, Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, ELT, Gender Studies and Culture Studies. It also seeks to develop, through teaching of language and literature, sensitivity to human and social values. The Department has been associated with the compilation of One Million Word Computer Corpus of Indian English, better known as Kolhapur Corpus of Indian English, which is being distributed world-wide through the Norwegian Centre for Computer Corpora Studies, Norway.

     The Department conducts M. A. and M. Phil courses and guides research at M. Phil, Ph.D. and Post-Doctorate levels. Under the overall scheme of improving teaching of English at the University level, ELT Centre, sanctioned by the UGC, was set up in the Department for the period of five years, from July 1987 to January, 1992. In accordance with the UGC guidelines, the ELT Centre organized Correspondence Courses for college teachers, prepared Teaching Materials for the undergraduate courses, and conducted Contact Programmes for college teachers in the modern techniques of Testing and Evaluation. The Department continues to be associated with the preparation of Text Books and Self-Instructional Materials for the undergraduate classes and the organization of the Teachers- Training Programmes.

     The teachers in the Department are actively involved in research. They have been working on several UGC and ICSSR sponsored research projects and have published research papers extensively. The Department was identified by the UGC under Special Assistance Programme (SAP) for DRS- Phase I in 2011. The thrust areas under SAP were (1) New Literatures in English and (2) Comparative Literatures.

Dr. A. M. Sarawade is the present Head of the Department.

Former Heads of the Department

• • Professor Guruprasad Thakur
  • Professor S. K. Desai
  • Professor S. V. Shastri
  • Professor C. J. Jahagirdar
  • Professor Prabhakar Patil
  • Professor Maya Pandit
  • Professor Jayaprakash Shinde
  • Professor P. A. Attar
  • Professor M. L. Jadhav
  • Dr. C. A. Langare